I don’t get the decision to keep the Buick brand going

Buick is huge in China. And Buick worldwide is more profitable per-unit than Pontiac. There’s a line from a comment in this thread that rings true, even though it was two and a half years ago:

It’s pretty obvious that GM (and a little less so, Ford) brass and accountants are looking at China and salivating… [o]nly sports cars and large commercial grade trucks will likely remain in North America.

Although that was before the downturn, I can honestly see a day when the American auto industry looks like Britain’s, with all mass production under foreign ownership, and domestic-owned production limited to niches like Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Bentley, except the US version will be GTOs and Vipers and pickups and Jeeps.

I don’t get the decision to keep the Buick brand going….Buick: The car for the person who is tasteless enough to want a Cadillac, but is too poor to buy one.

GM’s sales strategy was very dependent on its customers’ upward mobility. The lowest rung on the ladder was Chevrolet. As GM’s cheapest brand, it would be a choice for your first new car. As your lot in life improved, you’d likely buy a Pontiac, then an Olds, then a Buick. If your business grew large, or you made it to the executive suite, you’d buy a Cadillac. As people grew richer, GM could keep their business by trading them up to the next most expensive brand. (Chrysler used a similar approach with Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler and Imperial; Ford didn’t take the trade-up strategy quite so far, with only three lines of cars.)

This was very lucrative – I once read somewhere that the cost to build a Cadillac was only about $100 more than a Chevy, but the Caddy was much more profitable. With middle-class incomes becoming stagnant starting in the 1970s, the trade-up strategy was one of many things that began unraveling for GM.

Learned to drive on a Catalina, otherwise known as a rolling living room.

Same here. Dad and Grandpa both drove Pontiacs. All gone now.